Seeing those slaves being brought up, those luxuriously dressed nobles in the middle of the field stopped talking. They all looked at those slaves being brought up and started to comment on them.
A middle-aged nobleman raised his head and looked at the sun in the sky. After that, he made a hand gesture to those soldiers in the surroundings.
Some attendants took out incense sticks and stuck them into the ground. After lighting them, those nobles started to kneel on the ground and pray towards the incense sticks.
After that, someone took out a bronze tool and sprinkled some plant ashes in a circle around the open space, marking out an area on the ground.
Then, a witch dressed like a witch, with colorful feathers all over her body and a wooden pole tied with colorful strips of cloth in her hand, appeared. She started to dance on the empty ground, her feet moving back and forth on the ground as she muttered to herself. From time to time, she would wave the wooden pole in her hand in the air.
After the dance, the witch left the stage, and the nobles nodded their heads.
"The auspicious time has arrived. Start the sacrifice!"
Following this voice, the dozen or so slaves who were being dragged up began to cry and struggle.
"Mummy, I'm scared, I'm scared …" A little girl among the slaves started to scream as she tried her best to hide in her mother's embrace.
A white-haired old slave was crying as she hugged another little boy in her arms. She covered that little boy's eyes with one hand. Some other slaves were struggling.
However, those slaves' struggles were in vain.
The soldiers who were escorting them forced all the adults to kneel on the ground. They stepped on their feet and raised their machetes. One by one, their heads were chopped off. Their heads were filled with fear and pain as they rolled on the ground.
The fresh blood of the adults who had their heads chopped off splashed onto those children's bodies and faces. Those children were so scared that they started to cry loudly. Some of them even fainted due to fear.
"Mummy, mummy …" That little slave girl saw her headless mother's body falling down and sitting in a pool of blood. Her eyes were dull as she kept calling mummy and wanted to grab her mother's head …
The fresh blood of the old slave who was holding the little boy poured down from the little boy's head, turning him into a bloody person.
…
Even though they were in the Realm Bead and knew what was going to happen, Xia Pingan couldn't help but close his eyes when he witnessed this inhumane scene.
In slave societies, this kind of thing was very common.
If Xia Pingan had to find the two cruelest Chinese characters in the history of Huaxia where slavery existed, they would be "laying the foundation".
In this era, whenever the slave masters wanted to build a new high-rise building, they would hold a groundbreaking ceremony. The slaves would become the sacrifices of this groundbreaking ceremony. When the building was being built, the slaves would be killed and their bones would be placed under the high-rise building. They would use their flesh and blood to become the building materials of the slave masters' high-rise building.
Apart from the time of construction, when laying the foundation, when casting the walls, when installing the door, and when completing the building, slaves would be killed and used as sacrifices for the house.
The slave masters felt that by doing this, they could bless their high-rise building to stand tall and not fall, and their wealth would continue to extend.
In the many archaeological excavations of the later generations, under the remains of the magnificent buildings of this era, there were piles of bones, blood, and tears of slaves. Just the ruins of a palace in Hengnan used 889 living people to lay the foundation.
…
Blood flowed from the severed necks of the slaves who had their heads cut off. The luxuriously dressed slave masters looked at all this with a smile, and then ordered the soldiers to drag the bodies of the dead slaves around the open space a few times.
The soldiers raised the feet of the slaves, and the severed necks were close to the ground. In this way, they could force all the blood out of the slaves' bodies, and use the blood sprayed out by the slaves to water the ground of the high-rise building they were going to build.
Xia Pingan and the other slaves watched from the side.
When the blood of the decapitated corpses had completely flowed out, some of the slaves in front were driven forward and dug several large pits on the ground. In one of the large pits were the bodies of the decapitated adults, and the children were thrown into another pit. They didn't need to be decapitated, and were directly buried alive.
In the end, the groundbreaking ceremony was completed.
After completing the groundbreaking ceremony, the slave masters looked up at the scorching sun above their heads, and then smiled contentedly as they sat in the carriage and left, leaving the supervisors and soldiers to guard the place.
"Hurry up, get to work …" The supervisors waved their whips, whipped the slaves, and began to direct the slaves to work and carry the building materials.
…
"Pa …" Xia Pingan carried a piece of wood, and the whip hit him.
"Hurry up, don't be lazy …" The supervisor shouted.
Looking around at the armed and armored soldiers, Xia Pingan silently carried the things, and didn't say a word.
The slaves worked silently until the sky darkened. Everyone was exhausted, and the supervisors and soldiers then escorted Xia Pingan and the rest back to their own residence.
Xia Pingan walked in Brother Chao City, and sized up the capital of the Shang Dynasty. The houses of the slave masters in this era were easy to distinguish. Almost all of the slave masters lived in the big and small "Four Accents Heavy Houses", while the commoners lived in the relatively small "Suite Rooms" or "Single Houses".
A "single room" was a single room, while a "suite room" was also very simple. It was two rooms connected together with a door in the middle. In a commoner's room, the largest furniture was an earthen bed and stove.
The slaves didn't have the right to live in a house, so Xia Pingan and the rest were driven to some simple sheds and crypts. The sheds were built with the simplest wood and grass, and the crypts were holes dug underground, like dog kennels. No, in the eyes of many slave masters, the lives of slaves were not worth as much as a good dog.
The underground was dark and damp. Many of Xia Pingan's slaves lived in the crypts for a long time, and the joints of their hands and feet were a little twisted. It was obvious that they were suffering from severe rheumatism.
As for the food of the slaves, it was just some biscuits made of bran and some porridge boiled.
Xia Pingan held a piece of burnt bran biscuit, and squatted silently in the straw shed, looking at the people in front of him.
The slaves lived a life worse than pigs and dogs.
Their hatred was buried in their hearts. Everyone's appearance looked dirty and numb, as if they were shells without souls.
This life lasted for five days. On the sixth day, Xia Pingan and the rest stopped work before the foundation was completed.
That night, they ate a meal of biscuits and millet porridge for the first time.
That day, Xia Pingan heard the overseer chatting with the soldiers, saying that King Wu's army was coming.
The atmosphere in Brother Chao City was tense, and the nobles living in the "Four Halls" were uneasy.
On the seventh day, all the slaves in Brother Chao City were gathered, given weapons, and brought to the Muye. All the slaves knew that King Wu's army was coming.
Before King Wu's army came, the slaves were just sacrificial offerings for the nobles in the "Four Halls". They could be killed, buried, and lived like pigs and dogs.
When King Wu's army came, the nobles gave the slaves a good meal, then gave them weapons, and let them fight to the death on the battlefield to protect the nobles.
To the nobles, everything seemed to be logical, as if it was how it should be.
But to the slaves, there was an inexplicable restlessness among them, like a spark of fire.
The slaves had no status, and were as lowly as grass, but they were not stupid.
Even a dog knew that if someone treated it well, it would wag its tail at that person, let alone a person.
Would a dog risk its life to protect a person who would whip it with a stick at any time, abuse it, and threaten to kill it and kill its wife and children at the slightest provocation?
No, the dog would not! Not only that, the dog would bare its teeth at that person, growl, and want to turn into a wolf and tear that person's throat out.
Then why did the slave masters in Brother Chao City think that the thousands of slaves they used to build the foundations of their palaces would protect their palaces?
Xia Pingan did not understand this question.
Between the slave and the slave master, one was stupider than the dog, and the other was smarter than the dog. Otherwise, there would not be such an absurd arrangement.
At dawn on the eighth day, Xia Pingan saw King Wu's army in the vast Muye …
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